Rapunzel Rebraided
by RememberingSundayx3
Summary: What if Gothel had never taken Rapunzel? She grew up as a princess, healing everyone in Corona. Of course, she's sick of it. So when a certain thief comes in with an "undetermined illness", she knows exactly what she's going to do.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

"Rapunzel, sweetie, it's that time of day again!" The queen called, sending Rapunzel into a flurry of sighs. She hated 3:00 in the afternoon. It was the time when all of the sick or injured people from the village came to be healed by the princess.

She had heard the story many times. Every time the rulers from other kingdoms came, the story was repeated again. How a crazy old woman by the name of Gothel had tried to steal the young princess. Queen Victoria had walked in on Gothel singing a song and seeing Rapunzel's hair glow. Of course, Victoria had screamed, and the guards took Gothel to a cell in the prison, hanging her the next day.

But, instead of ignoring the glowing hair and everything that happened, Victoria and her husband, Oliver, had done many experiments to see exactly what magical qualities her hair possesses. When they found out that Rapunzel's hair could heal injuries, sicknesses, and even keep you young, they knew what to do.

They taught their daughter to sing the incantation, and brought in the sickest citizens of Corona. Rapunzel healed them, and word spread quickly of the princess's healing powers. And that is how, eighteen years later, every day at three in the afternoon Rapunzel trudges from her bedroom to the Healing Room.

"Rapunzel, this is Mrs. Flowers. She has an undetermined illness." Rapunzel shook hands with the woman, who was shriveled up and sickly.

"Thank you so much, Princess Rapunzel." She wheezed. Rapunzel smiled softly at the old woman.

"It's no problem." She sang her little ditty, her mother and father looking like the proud parents they are.

"I was just healed by the princess! Thank you, thank you!" Mrs. Flowers was so happy, Rapunzel thought she might explode.

The doors to the Healing Room burst open. A palace guard stepped in, bowing to the king and queen.

"One of our prisoners has come down with a very contagious illness. WE were wondering if he could see the princess to be healed." Victoria and Oliver were indignant.

"Absolutely not! No criminal will ever be in the same room as my daughter!" Oliver bellowed, scaring little old I-was-just-healed-by-the-princess Mrs. Flowers, who was being escorted out of the room. Victoria just nodded, agreeing with what her husband had to say.

"Why don't you ask what I have to say?" Rapunzel chipped in quietly.

"Why would you even ask such a question? That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard!" Oliver was still shouting, making Rapunzel angrier and angrier. She was going to be eighteen tomorrow, for goodness sakes! She can make her own decisions.

"I am going to see the prisoner!" She shouted, causing everyone in the room to stare in awe at the usually reserved princess. She stomped out of the room, gathering her seventy foot long golden hair as she left. "Tomorrow!" She added, running fast.

Rapunzel slumped on the floor of her room. She grabbed the paints from their spot on the dresser. The paintbrush, covered in hues of gold, grey, and blue seemed to be an extension of her arm. Her biggest masterpiece was almost finished.

"Finally!" She shouted, throwing her paintbrush on the floor, making it splatter on her dress. It was perfect: her long hair streaming out of a window of a tower.

"If mom and dad had seen this, they would have said it was a creative look at the way many teenagers feel. But not you darling, your life is amazing!" An almost psychotic laugh escaped her lips. "Isn't that right Pascal?" Her little green chameleon said, scurrying out from his hiding place.

She walked onto her balcony, which was almost directly above the village. She didn't like coming out here much. People were always watching. Like right now. Everyone was waving and smiling and shouting things to her. She loved the people of Corona-her people—but she wanted everyone to stop watching her. She gave a small wave and a smile, before strolling back into her room.

"Pascal? Do you think it's bad that I want to leave?" He whirred a little, and gave her what she thought was a shrug. She rolled onto her bed, sighing.

She really just wanted a week off from healing everyone. And an idea struck her.

"Pascal, its scheme time!" She squealed as her chameleon whirred.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

There was heavy silence in the air at supper that evening. Rapunzel was quietly trying not to slurp hazelnut soup—her favorite—and Victoria and Oliver were having a silent conversation about what to do with their daughter. As Rapunzel was about to excuse herself, they both turned towards her.

"Rapunzel, we don't want you healing that thief." Oliver stated,

"Way to not cut corners, father. But it's my hair. My choice. It's just logic." Rapunzel stated, shrugging. Her neck had started to hurt from all of the hair piled atop her head in a precarious heap.

"Yes, but this is a matter of life and death, dear. We don't want you getting hurt." Victoria said, gently placing her hand over her daughter's.

"Oh yeah, because I'm going to be attacked by the half dead criminal. That's likely." Victoria was surprised at Rapunzel's brashness. She was not used to having a disobedient daughter.

"Rapunzel! You are not going, and that's final!"

"I'm eighteen in two days, and I can do just about whatever I want. And what I want to do is heal the thief. Besides, if the entire jail died from sickness, father wouldn't be able to watch hangings. And you know how much he loves those." Oliver blushed. He had to admit, seeing ruffians and thugs hanged gave him a slight pleasure.

"Flower, you just need to be careful, okay?" Oliver said, giving into his daughter's demands.

"Oliver!" Victoria screeched. But her husband just gave her his _I'm-too-tired-let's-deal-with-this-later _look. Rapunzel smiled at her small victory. But it still didn't give her much leeway with her parents.

"Oh, Pascal," Rapunzel said to her four legged friend once she was back in her room. "I just don't know what I want to do. I just can't believe how protective they are. I'll probably have the entire royal guard supervising me to go heal this character. What did they say his name was again?" Pascal whirred a little, and gave her what she suspected was a shrug.

"Right. You weren't there." She flopped onto her four-poster bed, sighing. "I just wish someone would help me escape." She sat up abruptly, smiling at her chameleon. "I have a plan!"

Almost the entire royal guard accompanied Rapunzel to see Flynn Rider the thief. It took her three guards until she was able to ascertain his name. As they showed her where her patient was today, she walked in and was stunned. Why?

Because she thought he was probably the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her entire life. And then he spoke.

"Hey! I got a _hot_ nurse." She almost stormed out of that cell, and the royal guard almost forcefully dragged her out. But she kept her ground. She held out an arm at the guard, and they took a step back from her. Maybe not even that much. More like a half step.

"Hello." She said stiffly, taking another step towards him, realizing he was not as beautiful as she had first thought. His nose was running, and he had red welts all over his arms. This was by far one of the worse illnesses she had ever had to treat.

"Afraid?" He mocked, smirking at her.

"Uh, no. Just a little grossed out." She replied, cautiously wrapping a strand of her hair around his arm. She sang her song, and the welts disappeared, as did the paleness. And he was beautiful again. Too beautiful. And, of course, being the dashing rogue he was, he knew it.

"Well, hey Blondie. Prettier than the paintings of you in town, I would have to say." He smiled and raised his eyebrows in a suggestive way. She had a grimace, but forced herself to smile. Of course, that's when two of the royal guard picked her up and escorted her away.

"Rapunzel, I am sorry you had to hear that." The Captain said.

"It's no problem. Can you please let go of me now?" They released their vice like grip on her arm. "Now if you excuse me, I will be in my bedroom." She held her head high as she walked away, but could not stand the thought of running away with that scum on her birthday. Oh, well, she thought. He is my only ticket out of here.

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><p>Hey, thank you guys so much for reviewing and alerting and favorite-ing and such. I really really appreciate it. I'm sorry it took so long to update. I love you all, everyone of you! 3<p> 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

"I cannot believe I am still going to do this after meeting him!" Rapunzel said to Pascal. He whirred in agreement. "But it is the only way I am going to escape this prison. But it's not exactly a prison. It's too pretty to be a prison. Okay, now I'm freaking out!" She ran her fingers through the first few inches of her hair.

"Here I go, Pascal! Do you want to come with me?" He nodded and smiled at her. "Let's go convince the thief to take me away!" Then, of course, Victoria waltzed in.

"Rapunzel, honey! I was so, so, so worried about you! I heard from the guard that he tried to make a pass at you and I had to come see you as soon as I could. Why is your dress so short?" Rapunzel looked at her dress, which was about two inches too short.

"Oh, I was just painting and didn't want to get any stains on my new dresses. See, I painted what I saw from my window." She pointed to a painting she had made about two years earlier. But Victoria did not have to know about that.

"It is beautiful, Rapunzel! I absolutely love it. And what did I tell you about using contraptions?" She gave her daughter a pointed look.

"To not use them? I know, mother. I'm sorry."

"It is okay, flower. Just try not to use them." A knock came on the door, and a guard nodded at Victoria. "Rapunzel, I've got to go. I love you." She wiggled her fingers at her daughter. Rapunzel smiled and waved back.

"I love you too, mother." She waited until the door closed before sighing. "Pascal! Why does she always come at the worst possible time?" He lifted his shoulders at her, before getting in a comfy spot on her shoulder. "Doesn't matter anymore. I feel as if it's time for the plan to get in motion." She giggled at her blatant disregard for her mother's no contractions rule.

She sent the guards away by saying something about how her mother needed them for an important project. And then giving them the wrong directions to get to where she was. She approached the cell that held the ruffian.

"Hey! My nurse is back." He smiled freakishly at her. His whole face seemed to be swallowed up by his teeth and his eyebrows were wiggling at her.

"Do you have an eyebrow twitch or something? Because your face is kind of going crazy." He scowled at her.

"What do you want, nurse?"

"My name is Rapunzel, and I'd appreciate it if you called me that."

"Okay, Blondie, what did you come all the way down here for. I realize it wasn't to see the incredible conditions down here, so just spit it out."

"Fine. I want to you to get me out of this kingdom."

"Excuse me, but what? Why would you want to leave? You've got everything here. People wait on your every need." He looked at her like she was crazy. She was starting to think she was.

"I need to see the world! And I kind of hate healing people every day." He squinted at her.

"What's in it for me?"

"For every day you're with me and not caught, you will get a precious gem and I will get them not to kill you and a year off your sentence. But, if we're caught you would be accused of kidnapping the princess and be killed, execution style. So, are you in or not?"

"That is ridiculous! You waltz in here and think you can tell me what to do?"

"Fine. I guess you can just sit here. I'll be sure to tell daddy to move your execution to this evening. He loves executions…" She started to walk away.

"Wait! I'll do it, just get the keys." She grabbed the keys off the hook and unlocked his cell door. "The first thing we need to do is get rid of that hair."

"You are not going to touch my hair." She glared at him as menacingly as she could. He just sighed.

"Fine. We'll dye it, then. It's too easily recognizable to anyone to leave it as is. Do you have a weapon?"

"Why would I have a weapon?" He sighed.

"Okay, just take this frying pan." He plucked a cast iron frying pan from his cell.

"Why do you have a frying pan in your cell?" She asked, fingering the pan.

"Because I do."

"That's not much of an explanation."

"That's about all I can tell you about it. So, are we just going to walk out of here?"

"Um, yes, I guess."

"So you really haven't thought this out much, have you?"

"Not exactly. But I thought about it enough."

"Apparently not enough to figure out how we're even going to leave. It's a good thing I'm trained in the centuries old technique of sneaking out of a building."

"That's centuries old? And a technique?"

"Yes, it is! Now, here's the plan."

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><p>Hello, hello! Hope I didn't disappoint. Oopsies, I mean did not.<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

"So… this is your amazing plan?" Rapunzel asked, while she was being stuffed between Flynn and a chicken.

"Yeah! Who's going to look through a produce truck for the princess and the rogue their escapee?" He said; which made her roll her eyes.

"The only way you escaped is because I got the keys and opened the cell door for you!" Pascal whirred in agreement with her.

"So what? I still escaped. Do you want to hear about how I stole the crown jewels of Catalina?" He was starting to get on her nerves, which were wearing thin. She had never had to put up with anyone as annoying as him. He thought he was the most amazing person in the entire kingdom—maybe even the world!

"…And that is how I stole the crown jewels! Impressed?"

"Absolutely riveted." She deadpanned, trying not to smack him in the head with the frying pan. Pascal looked as if he was going to stick his tongue in Flynn's ear. All of a sudden, the cart came to a stop.

"Time to make our getaway!" He peeked out and saw that we were in the outskirts of the kingdom, right outside of a pub called…

"The Snuggly Duckling?" He pulled her out of the cart, and quickly steered her away.

"Oh no, Blondie. We want to stay as far away from there as possible."

"Why? It sounds like a nice place!" Pascal nodded in agreement.

"That is the complete opposite of a nice place. Besides, I've got some debts in there, so I don't really want to mess with that. Let's just continue along…" He ran away as fast as he could away from there, with a flustered Rapunzel at his heels.

"Do we really need to run?" She asked, tugging on his vest.

"No. You stay here. There's a village up ahead. I'll get you some hair dye, okay?" She nodded as he ran off. The minute he left, she felt very stupid. What if he left her, ran off with a farmer, and left her alone to be eaten by a bear? When he came back, he found her curled up in a ball on the ground.

"Blondie… what are you doing?"

"Panicking! But you're back, so I'm okay now!" She said, wiping her face, and popping up on her feet. He was a little weirded out by this, but for a jewel a day, he would put up with it. "Pascal helped, too." The little frog thing eyed Flynn, sort of creeping him out.

"Okay then. Time to go dye your hair."

"Oliver, where could she be?" Victoria cried, wringing her hands nervously. "I just can't believe she'd run off like that! This is awful!" She collapsed in a heap on her throne.

"Victoria, she's a good girl. She'll be fine."

"What did we do wrong? Could we have been more sympathetic? Oh, and the worst thing, Mrs. Lyle came down with smallpox! What is going to happen now that Rapunzel isn't here to heal her? Is Mrs. Lyle going to give the whole kingdom smallpox?" This enraged Oliver.

"Our daughter is gone and you're worried about _smallpox_? That's probably why she left in the first place! She hates healing people! She hardly talks to us anymore."

"But that's not our fault!"

"Yes, it is!" He couldn't think of anything else to say to his wife. He left the throne room with a sad look on his face and a hole in his heart.

"It's going to look so different!" She mumbled, gently stroking a small piece of her hair."

"That's the point, Blondie. You don't want anyone recognizing you, do you?"

"No?" He eyed her. "No! No, I don't. I don't. My mother would be furious with me right now. I just used _two_ contractions!" She laughed to herself. He started to worry about her mental state. "I hope you got enough dye to cover seventy feet of hair." She said, looking back at him. It was quite dark in the cave where they were hiding for the moment.

"I'm pretty sure three gallons will be enough. Hopefully." He sort of dumped the dye on her hair.

"Not like that!" She scrambled over to where he was sitting at the edge of the cave. He dipped chunks of her hair into the dye, making it look more even. "You know absolutely nothing about hair!" She huffed, sitting back down in her original spot.

"Yes, I do! Do you know how much work it takes to get my hair to look this good?"

"Five minutes?" He was shocked.

"_Excuse me_?"

"Yeah, your hair's not that nice." She lied. She thought his hair was very nice. But she wasn't going to let him have that satisfaction. He, however, was flabbergasted.

"That isn't even one percent of the time I spend on my hair!"

"Spending too much time on your hair isn't healthy, you know." He sighed and rubbed his temples. This was going to be a long week for both of them.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

"It looks… so _different_! But, in a good way." Rapunzel said, looking at the clump of recently dyed black locks in her hand.

"Yeah, I can hardly recognize you. You look like a person trying to look like the princess." Flynn said, making Rapunzel smile.

"Really? Thanks." They stood and sort of smiled at each other until a loud noise startled them. "What's that?" She asked. When a white palace horse burst through two trees, they ran as fast as they could

"Maximus! I should have known he would know where I am. He's smarter than the captain of the guard. I feel so silly!" She said between gasps as she ran through the forest with Flynn at her heels. He took a sharp right, stopping by what he thought was a rock wall covered in ivy. But when he placed his hand on the wall, he fell straight through, causing Rapunzel to follow.

"What…" Rapunzel said, until Flynn shushed her. They saw the horse sniff the ground and turn in the opposite direction. Once they took a sigh of relief, Rapunzel stepped into the clearing.

"Oh my gosh!" She said, pointing to the tower that stood many feet above their heads. It had blue-gray bricks on it, with a grey roof. It looked almost exactly like the tower she painted on her wall the night she came up with this plan.

"Hey, Flynn, do you think we should stay here for the next week or so?" He walked up to the tower and started looking for a door.

"Blondie! Found a door. Let's see if anyone lives here." He held the door open for her. She bounded into the tower and after what seemed like a million stair steps, she finally hit her head on a door leading into the tower. When she opened the hatch, she found a fully furnished house with no one in it.

"I believe this is a habitable place to stay." She said, plopping down on a couch.

"I agree." He said, sitting next to her. "But, don't you think it's a little… eerie?" To him, it seemed like no one had been there for about, oh, eighteen years.

"Nah, it's just a little dusty." She said, wiping her finger on the nearest end table.

"If you say so." He said moving around the room. He studied the girl with the newly dyed raven hair on the other side of the area and wondered what or who she was thinking about.

Meanwhile, back at the castle, Victoria was wondering what she could have done to keep her daughter from being stolen or running away.

She and Oliver had not spoken since the day before, when he got angry at her. She thought this was completely unjustified, because she had done nothing wrong. She was just worried about her kingdom. There's nothing wrong with that. Besides, Mr. Cauliflower, the bookkeeper's dog has become sick.

This was a perfect opportunity to see if Rapunzel could heal animals!

Of course, she was very worried about her daughter and what that dirty rotten thief was doing to her daughter. Also, she was worried if Mr. Cauliflower's illness would spread to humans. That would be disastrous.

Oliver was thinking about how much he loved his daughter. He felt as if Victoria was turning something about Rapunzel into something about a stupid dog. Mr. Cauliflower! What kind of name for a dog is that?

He was starting to think that was why Rapunzel ran away. He didn't think the thief would take her, he wasn't stupid. And Rapunzel would have put up a fight. Oliver would need to speak to Victoria once Rapunzel got back. That is, if she didn't force her to heal everything in the kingdom first.

Hey! Sorry updates took so long. I really appreciate all the love for this. <3 PASCAL LOVES YOU! 


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